In his book Independent Immigrants, Robert Frizzell points out three areas of out- migration from northern Germany to central Missouri. I just happen to have ancestors from each of those locations. Most people are familiar with the earliest settlers of Concordia, like the Dierkings, Frerkings, Bruns, Niemeyers, Oettings, and Stuenkels, who came from the Hanoverian area of Esperke (in the county of Neustadt am Rübenberge or area known as Calenberg) and other families that followed them. My Frerking ancestors were from Esperke and the Stuenkels came from Metel.

A second group came from an area in Westphalia, Prussia primarily from the county of Ravensberg or Osnabrück (nearby but actually in Hanover) This included the Holtcamps, Walkenhorsts, and other families. My Kappelmann ancestors also came from Borgholzhausen in this area, albeit via Franklin Co., MO.

A third group migrated from an area farther north in Hanover, in the Stade district between Bremen and Hamburg. Most of the families from this third area settled in Benton Co, MO around Cole Camp, although some came directly to Lafayette Co. while others eventually moved from Benton Co. to the Concordia area, like the Bodenstabs, Dankenbrinks, Oehlschlagers, and Schnakenbergs. Franz Walkenhorst, who came from Osnabrück, apparently was the first to move from Benton Co. to Lafayette Co. and may have influenced others to follow.

My grandfather Jacob Pape came from Meinstedt/Heeslingen in this third area. Others from that immediate area included Martens, Mueller, Holsten and Schlesselmann. Another village in the area from which a number of other families migrated was Selsingen, only about 5 miles west of Heeslingen. This included the Reiths and several other Pape families.

If you know of other families that came from one of these three areas, let me know. It would be interesting to compile a list of Concordia area surnames and group them by the area from which they emigrated. In a number of cases, several families from a certain village traveled together. So knowing that one family came from one of these locations might help find the homes of other families back in Germany.

All of the people from the three areas spoke Plattdeutsch; however the dialects from each area were slightly different. This is why one could identify three different versions of Plattdeutsch being spoken around Concordia. In spite of the different dialects, people could easily communicate with each other. Perhaps over time a merged version of Concordia Plattdeutsch evolved.

It has been over 50 years since I lived in Concordia, so any memory of the dialects spoken there have completely faded. Perhaps someone still living there can remind me by pointing out some of the words that differed in the various versions of Plattdeutsch. I remember Teacher Wukasch saying that the way to distinguish between the groups was how the word sprechen was pronounced. If I recall correctly, the most common form was sprichen. The book about Cole Camp by Brauer and Goosen uses the form snackt. Was that version also used in Concordia? The final version that I seem to remember sounded to me like keuen.

When people in Concordia started the Low German theater and chorus, what version of Plattdeutsch did they use?

I contacted a researcher in Germany, Marcus Buck, who operates the website at http://en.plattmakers.de/ and has been studying the North Saxon dialects in northern Germany in particular. He sent me the picture below from an atlas of German words that shows the distribution of the various versions of “to speak”.

As you can see, the original settlers of Concordia came from an area where the word sprechen (or spreken) was used. The settlers from a little farther north in the area around Selsingen used the word schnacken. Finally, the Prussians from Westphalia said küren. (My memory may be faulty, but I thought it had more of a “eu” sound than “ü”.)

Marcus also noted that the pronunciation sprichen was used to mock people in the Low German areas who tried to speak High German but hadn't quite mastered it.

Even though Grandpa Pape came from Meinstedt in the second area, I don’t remember him using the word schnacken. But then, Grandma's ancestors came from the first area which is why I remember the word spreken the most.

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